Darth Perniteus: Blackness of the Dark
by Mister Buch
Summary: The Sith are deadly, and they are patient. Centuries after the rise of the powerful Darth Bane and generations before the cunning Darth Sidious, somebody else has to tide things over and continue the line of secret dark masters with ridiculous names. That somebody is Darth Perniteus, and he will accomplish something, at some point, before the end of this story. Hopefully.
1. Portents of Evil

**A LONG TIME AGO IN A GALAXY FAR, FAR, AWAY...**

* * *

Deep in a forgotten corner of a disused trade route along the Outer Rim, a dull-grey moon silently spun. Its surface was bare save for a handful of loose rocks and a few pockmark craters, long since caked in dust. Beneath the moon's orbit, a starship hovered just as still. Just as deathly quiet.

Inside, two beings hunched over a tracker-field console, waiting. Like the ship, the machine was old but had been something of a designer item in ages past. Nowadays, nobody would have remembered the name of the hardware company who produced it, let alone its finest work.

One of the beings, a male Gungan with deep red, white-lined skin clinging to his skull, eye stalks and long ears, looked up. It was as though he had heard a reverberation of sound against the roof of their old hull. The long ears of the rangy creature's species were well-known to be more perceptive than those of the average humanoid, since Gungans had evolved between water and grass, with giant predators on either side. The struggle for survival had taught them to grow, to swim, to run and always to observe. But inside the small ship, there was nothing to hear.

At last, the younger creature - a heavy, stocky Ortolan with deep blue skin and black, round eyes – spoke. "Do you sense something, master?"

"Nossa," replied the other. "Merely a tremor."

Both men straightened their backs, and the Master adjusted his loose black robe. For a moment, one of his eyes got caught against the hood and bent the stalk painfully against the back of his head, but he calmly rectified the problem. Lord Perniteus, the dark master of the ancient Order of the Sith, was used to that. And as they had the lights off, it went unnoticed.

"The merchant scouts have passed," he told his apprentice. "Their presence has been swallowed up, for now. We are free to study the moon's surface, and the powerful presence that summoned us."

"The dark side," the student droned, "is strong in this place." Darth Flagetus had only recently begun his training as the great Sith's chosen apprentice, but he was already on the correct path and determined to impress.

"Yessssss..." Perniteus agreed. "I can almost _taste_ it. If you are to succeed me one day, then youssa must learn to find your way in the emptiness of the Force. The dark side must be your guide, even as your will commands its path."

"The dark will be my home," the student whispered.

"Yes, good one. It is your home as well as your guide, and your slave. And you are _its_ slave."

Flagetus scratched his trunk. "And yet I will wield it as a weapon against our sworn enemies, the Jedi."

"Yes. It is our weapon and we are the instruments of its will."

"I... see..."

"And as the dark guides us, so too will it cloak us, and we will protect it from the light, by preserving it inside ourselves, and allowing it to thrive and spread, a glut of darkness such as secretly grips the stars in place, and yet the stars are bodies of pure entropy, so in a way _they_ are the true source of the..."

A long moment passed.

"Never mind," Perniteus said. "I thought I was going somewhere with that."

"Let's have lunch," Flagetus replied.

"Bombad," the master muttered, his tall eyes staring into nothingness. The Universe and his gaze seemed, for a moment, to meet in the middle, in quiet acknowledgement of one another's strength of will. "Let me use the refresher first."

As the Dark Lord and his follower parted company and sensed their way through the unlit room, they knew that soon their hunger would be sated by the last of the good sandwiches. They would then leave the Corbos system, re-trace their hyperspace route and go home, their curiosity appeased for now and the strange emanations of this moon safely under their watch. And that would have been a pretty productive weekend for them.

* * *

_STAR WARS:_

**BLACKNESS OF THE DARK:**

**THE REIGN OF DARTH PERNITEUS**

_PART I OF THE RISE OF PERNITEUS HEXAGY_

_(ASCENT OF THE SITH ERA)_

by Mister Buch


	2. The Slumbering Beast

**Chapter One - The Black Heart of the Slumbering Beast of Night**

* * *

The unassuming, centuries-aged space vessel _Decimator_ had once been the perfect vehicle for a Sith Lord. The powerful Darth Malak, he who had destroyed the Jedi academy on Dantooine and brought the old, old Republic to its knees, was said to have built the ship from sheer energy in his secret headquarters at the very heart of the galaxy. Now, three and a half thousand years later, the _Decimator_ fulfilled the same purpose: it was the perfect ship for Darth Perniteus, looking as it did to all observers like a very old ship whose turbolasers and tertiary controls no longer worked because a Gungan once flew it into the ground. No-one would ever guess that this small ship harboured the true embodiment of evil, and this was the reason he had yet to have it fixed, along with some financial details which he preferred not to think about.

Pulling the door open with his lanky forearms and the Force both, Perniteus strode down the small landing ramp and onto the metal floor of the public hangar which he anonymously rented. After taking a moment he and his apprentice made their way to the open blast-doors and reflected on the familiar view of Corellia in twilight. It was a planet of convenience – covered from pole to pole by cities of a medium height and ordinary Core dwellers, specialising in mechanical work and shipyards. From high up like this, one view of the planet looked much like any other.

"Master," Darth Flagetus spoke from behind him in hush tones, "this has been a day of triumph. Heeding the Force's call we have encountered a moon which pulses with the dark side."

"Muy muy."

"What shall we do with this discovery? Can we harness its power to destroy our enemies?"

Perniteus thought long and hard about this. "Sure," he said eventually.

"Yes?"

"Absolutely. I have already begun harnessing it, although I am not surprised you did not sense it. I was very subtle about it. I meditated as you prepared the ship, in fact. You may have thought I was asleep... for instance, but now you see your foolishness. Do not ask of this again."

The Ortolan blushed, though it was hard to tell beneath his thick, blue hide. "I still have much to learn, Master," he conceded gracefully.

"Oh yessa," Perniteus continued, staring into the landscape. "Yessa yessa, I have absorbed the... the power, certainly. When the time comes, we will certainly... ah..."

"But when will the time come, my Lord?" the apprentice followed with some renewed enthusiasm. "Our order has waited five hundred years since the great Bane set our plan in motion. When shall it come to fruition?"

"Soon, young one. First we must... ah, attain oneness with the dark side. And you must learn patience. Not today, anyway. There is a task which warrants my attention."

"But soon?"

Perniteus gestured to his apprentice to follow, lifted his black cloak's hood up over his head, and took the passenger seat of his parked speeder while closing the hangar doors by remote. Flagetus followed suit and started the engine.

"The strength of the Sith is time and planning," he said, warmly. "While the Jedi rush to fight the Republic's battles and claim as many worlds and lives as they can before their light fades, you and I watch and wait. We strengthen ourselves more and more, until the time comes when we see the moment to strike. Then we pounce upon their throat, and snuff our their blades."

"But what if that chance doesn't come in our lifetime?"

This seemed, as it had always seemed, like rather a good point, as far as Perniteus could tell. Many generations of great Sith Lords had risen and fallen since Darth Bane initiated the Grand Plan, to be followed over generations of hidden Sith. The great sorcerers who followed him had all obeyed, living their lives alone and in hiding, training a single apprentice to succeed them, without ever revealing their existence to the Jedi, their enemies of millennia past.

The idea of the final surprise attack – the final revenge of the Sith – made Perniteus' long mouth water. But he wondered if those Sith who had lived and died in the shadows before him didn't feel a bit... pointless.

"Have you ever killed a Jedi?" Flagetus asked, disturbing his thoughts.

"Muy," the master answered cooly. "Many times. But always in _secret_. The Jedi can never know of us until their last moments. Every time I have crossed one of their order, I have dispatched them in ways which resemble accidents or natural causes, even to the most skilled of their own investigators."

"Very impressive, my master!"

"Yessa, so don't go looking it up or anything, because there won't be any records."

"I see."

"Because I covered it all up."

"Yes, master."

"Drive the speeder."

As the journey to their separate dwellings progressed in silence, the Dark Lord thought about the questions Flagetus had asked. How _was_ a Sith master to justify his role if destiny did not choose him to destroy the Jedi, but merely to pass his master's knowledge and power along a thousand-year relay? He didn't often think of these things, but there were times when he felt like less of an all-conquering mastermind than a sort of part-time history tutor with no pension options.

And he could already see that Flagetus' impatience for action would be a problem.

In time the doubts dissipated in the Dark Lord's thoughts, allowing the clear black of his will, his passion, and his hatred to drive him and keep his mind strong. The power of hatred was something the Jedi would never understand, something they _could_ not understand. It bubbled and seethed in the followers of the dark side, slowly dripping down into the pits of their stomachs like fuel for a great fire that would one day erupt and burn everything they chose to spit at. Every fresh accomplishment and every failure, these all added to the hate, to the cauldron that he stirred: its hot, foul smell alone giving Perniteus the strength he needed to continue his work.

Before he allowed his body to slumber that day, there was a week's worth of ironing to do before he went to work in the morning. He _hated_ the ironing.


	3. The Unseen Surface of Existence

**Chapter Two - The Unseen Surface of Existence**

* * *

"The eyes of a true Sith see what weaker beings cannot," Perniteus explained as a ghost of a grin crept to the sides of his wide, leather mouth, revealing his predator's piercing teeth. "And these eyes hoard this information within themselves. They become saturated, as brightly burning stars do. They become power. The highest form.

"They become heavy and weighed down, they become large and yellow, or red, like matter on the verge of gravity-warping supernova, such that the feeble, unmolested bodies of men and women can barely contain them. This pain, this straining and stretching of simple, slowly-evolved birth matter, this is the power that truly shapes the Galaxy. Whilst the frightened, child-like Jedi struggle and fumble to keep _balance_, to restrain the expansion of their world, to keep order and deny death, expansion and rebirth, only we Sith see the truth. The truth that the universe was always meant to grow, and life was always meant to be built with the pulverised, dry ruin of weaker, dead beings. Life which the new growth has conquered.

"Life which finally sees the truth in the eyes of the Sith who kills it. Life which only obtains a faint slither of worth... in death."

Perniteus stared, blank and unblinking, ahead, lost in his thoughts. Lost in the wisdom and passion which fuelled him.

"The Sith are fire," he continued, smiling fully now. "They are everything from prehistoric flint to as-yet-undreamed-of hyper-destructive laser blasts. They are tools of destruction, and they are the will to survive. They are nature, they are energy. Not stagnation, but a _force_ in every sense. The only force. The 'dark side' is only that greater surface of what the Jedi grasp which cannot be seen.

"We see it. In every triumph, in every death, in every moment that the Galaxy spreads outwards. We see it, and we absorb what we see. And we _glow_. We radiate. We are the light."

"Binks, are you talking to yourself again?"

Perniteus blinked, caught something at the back of his throat, and spun around. "_No!_" he yelled, a little too loud. "No! Of course not, sa! _No_. Why were you even... I mean... what did you hear, Jahn?"

Jahn Danmar, The Gungan's deputy supervisor at AXO Budget Electronics Depot, smiled warmly. The tall, fair-haired human always seemed to find Perniteus amusing, which stirred unparalleled rage in the Sith.

"Hey, I..."

"What did youssa _hear_, Jahn?" It was only now that Perniteus heard the laughter behind him.

Through guttural spurts of laughter, a fat zabrak coughed out, "Somethin' about _the Galaxy spreads outwards_, something about _what cannot be seen!_"

"It was stuff like that," Jahn agreed, more softly.

"You're crazy, Binks! When did you become an astrophysicist, huh?"

"Creature, I warn you..."

The zabrak didn't hear, though. He only stepped up and clapped a meaty hand on Jahn's shoulder, nearly knocking him over, and hollered, "Hey guys! Get a load of Professor Binksy over here!"

A few other men laughed without even understanding why, and Perniteus' face burned red with dark side energy. None of these base creatures would ever understand the truth of the man they were speaking to. Not unless they were one day fortunate enough to be enlightened by his blade, or preferably his grip. Here at the Budget Depot, Perniteus worked five days a weak in the most unassuming of roles befitting a Dark Lord's secret identity. Who would suspect that the mighty thorn in the Republic's side lay in a used electronics warehouse, ferrying damaged and repurposed goods between two turbolifts endlessly, all day, all... damn day, for minimum wage? It was a stroke of genius on his part – while all Sith required a secret identity, Perniteus had avoided the more common choices of 'aristocrat', 'high-profile business-leader', 'socialite', 'politician' or 'influential academic', Perniteus had wisely opted for a less obvious role, so that the Order's whereabouts would be utterly mysterious and untraceable, and also because getting started on the career ladder was hard at his age and off-world transport was really not as cheap as it was in Bane's day. _Binka-Bee Binks_ was the false name he used – his old name, in fact – from before he was reborn as a servant of destiny, the Galaxy's only sentient driving force, the guardian of th–

"...actually think he can hear us. _Hey!_" a voice yelled.

"What!"

"Can you hear us in there?"

Another fool, a twi'lek this time, chipped in. "Or are you working on a new hyperdrive matrix over there?"

"I can hear you." Soon. If he pushed it. Soon this waste matter would understa–

"Then why are half of this morning's shipments either not labelled or still in arrivals?" Jahn again. A little angry.

"Oh. Well, uh..."

"Look I'm sorry, Binka-Bee..."

The Dark Lord scowled, evilly. "Don't call me that," he ordered.

"All right. All right, I'm sorry. I don't mean to get at you, and I know you sometimes get lost in thought, but we're behind shipping now. You know? I can't have that. I need to run this place with a little professionalism, all right buddy?"

Soon this slime would be expunged from the face of existence.

"All right?" The other guys were gone now. Jahn, his pathetic fleshy face still smiling, looked genuinely apologetic. This weakness would be his downfall when the time came.

"And I can't keep making excuses to the boss. Look, do you want to work some overtime to earn your bonus back? Doubtle time?"

Perniteus contemplated all things.

"Muy muy," he replied eventually.

"Okay, great. I'll see you on the night shift."

When at last he was alone, the Sith allowed his consciousness to split into two halves. Whilst one began working-out how long he had been thinking and how many labels and shipping calls he had missed, the other half sat grimly and purposefully, serenely embroiled in rage and agony, working out what excuse to tell Flagetus when he cancelled their meditation tonight.

He wanted to say he was infiltrating the Jedi temple on Coruscant to copy their holo-archives. But that was probably a bit far fetched, and he would have to produce something to prove it. Maybe he would go with a dentist's appointment, or something like that.

"Binks?"

Jahn was behind him again. How long had he been aloof now?

"What?!" he snapped.

"Sorry. Are you okay? Your eyes are all... yellow and stuff. Y'all right?"

Perniteus merely smiled, nodded, and turned to the refurbished goods conveyor belt. For a moment, the human had glimpsed true power. It was right that he was stunned! Not all of the dark side's physical effects upon a mortal body could be disguised, and sometimes the true nature of things had to be–

"_Owwww!_"

Everything went black, until Pernitius came to on the floor. A pile of broken boxes lay scattered about the ground where he had tripped. Later he would learn that he had flipped over three times, caught his tongue in the stamping machine, accidentally fed himself into the auto-packer and emerged in a crumpled, dribbling, tightly-bubble-wrapped lump on the other side, muttering something about power flowing through him, which Jahn guessed was probably a loose cable which they would see to first thing tomorrow in case this happened again.

Sometimes being a Gungan, with all the species' natural faults, was hard.

Hours later, when he called his apprentice to cancel, it was easy to find an excuse.

"Not again, Master..."

"Yessa again. Bring me my eye drops."


	4. The Path of the Legacy

**Chapter Three – The Path of the Legacy of a Dynasty of Nasties**

* * *

It was at the end of a long, deep, silent meditation that young Darth Flagetus opened his eyes and spoke. He was almost surprised by what he saw: nothing but a dim, sparse room and the image of his master crosslegged and solemn. In his thoughts he had become so accustomed to the deep palpatations of the dark side, tremors of the Force around his senses, that he expected to _see_ them in some way. His eyes, he realised, now deceived him. Mere light was a child's grasp of vision. _Cool_, he thought, deciding to write that last bit down later for future use. _Child's grasp of vision._ He cleared his throat.

"Master?" he asked.

Darth Perniteus stirred. "What is on your mind, apprentice?"

Flagetus blinked, making a show of acclimatising himself with the room while he phrased his question. "I was wondering: who was your master? Who taught you the ways of the dark side, and... and..."

"And when did I destroy him?"

"Yes."

Perniteus curved the corners of his mouth beneath his ears, in an almost cruel expression as if hinting at some joke the young Ortolan was not a part of. "Yessssss," he growled. "Yes, indeed. Such questions must always be answered by the master, when the time is right." He stretched out his long, leather fingers and bent his tall neck as he spoke.

"My master was a powerful Ewok warlord known as Da–"

"Ewok?!" Flagetus interrupted, sputtering the word.

"Yes, they are a sentient race of bears from th–"

"Oh, I know what they are, I just... uh... never mind."

"He was a powerful Ewok... warlord... named Darth Nefaarius. His master before him was the terrible and feared Darth Villanaus. And his master in turn... the legendary Darth Esaurus."

Flagetus visibly shuddered. "Darth Esaurus the Chronicler? He who revitalised the Sith's naming conventions?"

"Yessa, the same. My master was much like the others who have come and gone, albeit shorter and without the ability to speak Basic. He had a sort of... system of grunts and purrs, that... well, he taught me as well as he could."

"Of course."

"Yes. He was mighty indeed. During his tenure as the ruler of our secret line, he successfully kept us so well-hidden that the Sith became more than a legend... a sort of joke, in fact, among the Jedi. Some of them even forgot who we were completely, due to his deceptions and his general appearance. He also once successfully stole a Jedi's wallet, which had like fifty credits in it. Of course she cancelled all the cards and such, but those credits were on a _chit_. We dined well that day. He also came up with the idea of waterproofing our black robes and meeting on Saturdays instead of Sundays."

"Gosh."

"Indeeeeeed. A worthy leader. But eventually, he had to be disposed of."

A deep and biting cold seemed to fall on Flagetus' shoulders. He wondered for a moment if it was only his nerves, or some other power, perhaps even one commanded by his master.

Perniteus held the young learner's gaze without fully opening his own eyes. "Nefaarius met his end," he finally said, "ten standard years ago. By my hand, of course. It is always the way of the Sith. The apprentice must become the master by defeating the one who taught him."

Flagetus nodded. "And how did it happen?"

Again that grim, hard, self-absorbed parody of a smile turned-up the Gungan's thick lips. "We were visiting the volatile, volcano-ridden surface of the planet Mustafar," he said from behind sharp teeth. "I seized an opportunity when I pretended to trip down the landing ramp, and then pretended to fall off a ledge, over a pit of lava, and pretended to scream a great deal. Nefaarius pulled me up, and I pretended to fall again and knock him into the lava with my behind. Feigning the _stereotype_ of Gungan clumsiness, you know. If you've never seen an Ewok over an open flame... well, believe me, youssa don't want to."

"Impressive, my Lord..."

"Unfortunately he had all of our existing archives on his person – our collection of scrolls and ancient Sith holocrons from the old masters. We were going to upload them all to the new system on Mustafar. Which is... one of the reasons I have so little material to teach you with now..."

"Then why didn't you wait until later, before... pretending to trip? Or why not secure these texts before pushing him?"

The cold grew in the room and seemed to sit heavy on Flagetus' shoulders. Eventually Perniteus muttered, "You will understand in time," and made a face.

"Thank you, Master."

"Yes, right, so that was the end of him, and indeed most of our resources. Some sacrifices have to be made, and so on. No more questions. Clear your mind of whatever you're thinking right now."

Flagetus did as he was told and found his focus returning to him.

"One day," the master instructed, "you must destroy me also, and take on a learner of your own. And so we will continue the great Circle of Life."

"The... Rule of Two, my Lord?"

"That's the one, yes. The Rule of Two, as established by the great architect of our purpose, the almighty Darth Bane."

The meditation looked as though it was about to resume for a while, but then Flagetus spoke again. "Tell me of Darth Bane. Many times now you have spoken of his greatness and the reverence that all Sith acolytes have held for him over the long generations of five hundred years..."

"Indeed. He was our great regenerator, and history's most magnificent strategist."

"But who was he? Were his tales destroyed on Mustafar when you tr–"

"When I _assassinated my master_ by seizing the moment and using the will of the Force to my ends? No, they were not. For the legend of Bane is one passed down orally – on nights such as this, from one Lord to another. Above all else – above the stories of Exar and Revan, above the mighty Emperor and his outer kingdom invasion, above the founding of our people on Korriban, above whatever else was in those scrolls and holos that fell into the lava and I never got to hear... the tale of Bane is the one which we hold most deeply in our memories."

A new sensation fell upon Flagetus now: something insidious and unnatural that he had never felt before. Something that defied all the mundane sensations that his skin and muscle were accustomed to. Something that made him feel weak and helpless before the sheer weight and effortlessness of what he truly served. Perniteus did not react, but appeared deep in thought.

When he was ready, and the strange feeling had engulfed his student completely, Perniteus spoke. The story of Darth Bane did not relieve the pervasive sensation, but it did distract from it. Flegelus was rapt.

"Lord Bane," Perniteus began slowly, "was born on a small, inhospitable world called Apatros, during the Sith Empire's seventy-third Great Civil War against the Republic. We weren't exactly winning, but we really were trying harder. The only work to be had on Apatros was mining, using dangerous pneumatic drills to retrieve cortosis, since although the people of Apatros had mastered space travel and knew the value of cortosis, they were yet to understand basic mining lasers, or indeed any form of excavation beyond having large men wield enormous pneumatic drills which riddled them with illness and weakness of the bones. But this extraordinary oversight on his managers' part, along with the fact that he was routinely beaten by everyone around him, made him strong."

"He was routinely...?"

"Yes, the other miners and his father abused him terribly, as did most people he met later in life. He earned the name Bane as he was considered a burden. However, one night he accidentally got into a bar fight, hid in a packing crate and ended up being indoctrinated into the Sith's ranks."

"Within Lord Kaan's Brotherhood of Shadow, Bane learned mighty secrets of the dark, such as how to fight with sticks. Of course, he usually lost the stick fights and spent most of his time recovering from his injuries... and generally he came last in all his studies. A girl also deliberately toyed with his emotions and used him for her own promotion, which worked out pretty well for her. But – again – it made him _strong_. Eventually, after being thrown out... uh, after... after _realising that he was too great_ to be a part of the pathetic Brotherhood, he fled to a cave, nearly dying from the journey, and discovered an ancient Master's wisdom as he recovered from his injuries. This taught him the powerful 'thought bomb' technique, which ended the Battle of Ruusan in a single stroke, destroying every member of the Sith but himself, and at least three Jedi knights, immediately."

"He... destroyed... all...?" Flagetus was confused but chose his words carefully.

"Yes. Some Sith have difficulty understanding the wisdom of this manoeuvre, but trust me on this. It's complicated. Anyway, the Jedi foolishly assumed they had 'won', since the Sith's entire force has been wiped out by one of their own men, and Bane went off to recover from his injuries, as per usual, while the enemy returned to their temple and laughed their heads off. After a few years, as the Republic and Jedi went from strength to strength, Bane trained Darth Zannah and sent her out on secret missions whilst he accidentally crashed a ship, failed to recover anything from the tomb of Freedon Nadd, and then got attacked by parasitic beetles which covered his entire body and then remained attached for some years to come."

There was a slight pause. Perniteus looked at the floor.

"He then... spent a few more years trying to get the beetles off of him and... ah... not succeeding... and then devoted himself to creating a Sith holocron of his own. This extremely delicate and intricate process requires the most honed, the most deadly, pinpoint, expert oneness with the dark side of the Force – only a true, worthy master of the dark is ever able to create such a powerful and precious artefact..."

"And did Lord Bane succeed in creating one?"

"Well... no. He failed twice, accidentally smashing them into pieces, and then he trashed his camp and stormed off. And went to recover from his injuries, of course.

"After this... was over... he eventually got the parasitic beetles off his body and went on to rebuild the Sith Order from the ground up..."

Flagetus interrupted. "Having destroyed it?"

"Yes, exactly... and he eventually attempted to train a second apprentice to supplant his rebellious first, whom he challenged to a duel to the death!"

"Of course he won?"

"No."

At this point in the conversation, all sense of strange powers and dark pulses in the room had peetered-out somewhat. Flagetus was painfully aware of the sounds of the neighbours downstairs arguing about their heating bills. His heavy blue cheeks flushed purple a little in embarrassment.

Perniteus went to get a cup of stimcaff.

Upon his return, the master made an apologetic face, and admitted, "To be honest, the legend of Darth Bane sounded a lot better in my head."

"Yes, master."

"I mean, I'm sure I'm forgetting the good parts, you know what I mean?"

"Of course."

"Like, I'm sure there was a very good reason why he killed all of the Sith on the eve of a final battle with the Jedi, and then fled. And crashed his starship. And got covered with beetles."

"As you say, my Lord."

"I mean, he was the master strategist, you see. He _said_ so!"

"Yeah."

The rest of the evening passed quietly enough and with a renewed sense of peace. The meditation resumed in earnest after they had both stretched their legs and let out a long, long held sigh. When Flagetus left, Darth Perniteus fell into a deep, comfortable sleep while watching his soaps.


	5. The Call of Destruction

**Chapter Four – The Call of the Final Destruction of the Cycle of the Light**

* * *

The old planet's surface did not glow, or teem, or glisten, or even seem to turn at the dead of night. It was dull and it was dormant. The flat, empty night sky did not provide any illusion of movement, but merely showed the masses and stretches of dry soil, rock and buildings for what they were: the rotting crust of a ball of hard mass whose hot centre faded more each day. Every step on this crust broke it a little more. Every revolution around itself slowed it and aged it. Every breath the Dark Lord took deprived it of its life.

Amidst the ruins of an abandoned city, two animal figures stirred-up dust and noise and blood, for a while. One creature – a human man with a trimmed beard and long hair as sharp and studied as his cold, pale eyes – limited himself to breathing as he stood still, catching his breath and stifling every other impulse he felt. The other's face was covered by a hood of black velvet, but he stood at roughly the same height, albeit with a thinner build. This one paced back and forth, snarling and thinking fast, his thoughts already structured for him in the most appropriate way, structured to kill, as he needed to now. His black, loose-fitting robes were an old joke: a parody of the white gown the other man wore. His laser sword was coloured red to mock the other man's sky blue. Now, suddenly, it seemed funny to him. A long moment passed while both men waited to strike.

The red sword swung down, humming suddenly like an angry Alderaanian wasp as its owner charged. The other man swung his arms into position and prepared to return the blow, barely restraining a snarl.

The Jedi failed to recognise the obvious feint until the last moment, blamed himself for his lack of concentration, let the criticism go and immediately threw a rehearsed defensive parry, which stopped the black figure's attack in its tracks and pushed it away. The red blade appeared again from another angle right away, hacking like the edge of an enormous axe toward its opponent's legs. Realising he could not block this attack, the white-clad man thrust his leg behind him, lowering his posture and reducing his balance enough to allow his opponent a vicious, squealing blow straight down at the Jedi's head.

The Sith pushed with all the strength his body and mind could muster, abandoning every other effort they had engaged in, but it was not enough to resist the age-old stance the other man had jammed his body into when he saw the attack coming. Sensing a moment of weakness, the Jedi straightened his arm at a sudden speed, splaying his fingers and widening his eyelids as though trying to throw them off of his body. A pulse of the Force darted into the Sith's thin stomach – not a strong display of Force manipulation by anybody's standards, but enough to punch a relaxed abdominal muscle into itself and make a tired humanoid shudder in pain. The Jedi sprang backwards like an Iridonian jerd and ran.

The chase continued as it had through the night. With each broken old house that the Jedi crashed through, which each crumbling brick he leaped across, with each wall or barricade he tried to hide behind, the beam of his hunter's lightsaber was always there, following, shining like a warning across the fields of grey he put behind him.

The morning approached and the fighters began to lose spirit. Both of them knew it would end soon, so the Jedi stopped running at the top of a stone staircase that had once been a castle tower, in a civilisation long-past, for lives nobody remembered. Three other battlements remained, in lesser states of repair, in the distance. They were blurry black shadows against a deep, red sky, now. Flat and simple, like the backdrop of a puppet show.

The Sith did not climb the stairs after him, but merely appeared in front of his foe, having hurled his body up the impossible height of the structure like an Ansion shanh cat cornering its prey.

There were no more words or meaningful glances between the men at the end. The Jedi lunged, backed-off, struck from the sides, trying to mix his lightsaber forms into a pattern that might put his enemy off balance. The Sith batted the attacks back wildly, cut a long lesion into the human's chest, and employed the Force to snap his weakened neck.

Smiling, he lowered his hood to reveal his face. The creature's long, sticky tongue washed the backs of its teeth as it breathed deeply. The cowl, just this once, did not catch on his eye-stalks.

"_Bombaaad_," Perniteus whispered.

The short blue lightsaber deactivated, its mechanism squealing like a wounded Ithorian pack jackal, a final protest of pure hate, before it fell from the Jedi's hands.

A small change made itself felt, like a distant thunder, a low rumble that only Perniteus could hear. He smiled and looked across at the landscape – the rocks, the dust, the towers, the nothing. The pile of still flesh, dead hair, cloth and metal. The red-draped sky. The apparent approval of the Heavens, as though a greater being had been watching the battle, and now it waved its chosen banner in approval. The red of the Sith Lords. The veil of the light-giving sun. A dying sun. The glorious peace it would leave in its wake.

* * *

Perniteus opened his eyes, stared at his bedroom ceiling, and jumped to his feet.

Very much like a Felucian back-beast, or indeed like a Naboo Gungan, he immediately tripped over his shoes, smashed his head into the dresser cabinet, and calmed his mind with a resigned mutter of "Oh, muy muy...!"

His curtains were still closed and his alarm had not yet sounded. He had a moment to think. To meditate on his vision. To get some headache pills out of the side-cabinet before the damn alarm made him worse.

A _vision._

A vision from the darkness. The death of the Jedi knights, by his hands. Today! But after those pills. He had a few left in the emergency stash.

In a sort of stupor, he climbed to his feet without blinking. His cold, wet, round eyes stared stoically forward and his dragging, suckered fingers grasped at the ground like like a Coruscanti granite slug, albeit on Corellia instead of Coruscant and without the immediate presence of any granite. A slug, essentially. Like a slug.

Groaning, Perniteus picked up a small comm speaker and activated a familiar sequence.

"Jahn," he rasped. "It's Binks. I shan't be coming into work today."

He blinked.

"Yes, as a matter of fact I _did_ hit my head on the dresser again, but that has nothing to do with this call. I have business elsewhere today." His thick, snow-white thumb shut off the device before Jahn could finish his reply.

"Business," he said to nobody in the room, "of revenge."

The time had come.


	6. The Revenge of the Sith

**Chapter Five – The Revenge of the Sith**

* * *

After recovering from hurting his head, Lord Perniteus took a moment to browse the Holonet with a cup of stimcaff. Immediately on seeing the early morning local news, he froze in shock. The sim-screen in front of him grabbed his attention.

A great Jedi warrior, it said, a revered master of their order, was coming to Corellia. That afternoon, this Jedi was scheduled to journey to the capital city of Coronet, alone, to take a place in the ongoing border debate between the planets Selonia and Talus as honoured guest. It was customary for the Jedi knights to travel everywhere in pairs, one master and one student, but this one apparently preferred solitude.

The coincidence was too great to believe. The vision the dark side of the Force had given him... this was it. This was the destiny he was to achieve. The time of the return of the Dark Lords was finally upon him, and the destruction of the vaunted Jedi order would begin with him.

It was daunting, but invigorating. The darkness seemed to seep into Perniteus' body, saturating him as he prepared himself. Before the dawn came, he jumped into his speeder and flew straight to his private starship bay, where he boarded the _Decimator_ and flew straight up above the sky and into atmosphere, to make the fastest time possible. Coronet was two countries away, but the ancient Sith warship was faster than anyone realised. Today, the being known to all around him as 'Binka-Bee Binks' discovered just how fast. He touched down in a small, out-of-the-way commercial dock outside Coronet's legislative centre only an hour later.

Quickly, Perniteus established the Jedi master's planned arrival point and the most likely routes and methods he would take to the Union Hall, where the debate would take place. After this he travelled all of them using an anonymously-rented speeder and finally came to a stop outside the Hall itself. The Jedi, he decided, would never see this sight.

Sitting down on a bench and wondering if he should make time to eat something, if indeed his body required any more sustenance than the dark energy powering it now, the assassin immediately yawned with exhaustion and fell asleep.

When he awoke, his neck was sore and stiff, and the sky was clear and blue. How long had he...?!

Before he could check his chronometer, Perniteus was distracted by what had woken him: a strange creature, half the height of the average being and covered in a rough brown coat which smelled a little bit, trying to climb up onto the bench beside him.

Irritated, confused and lost in his panic, the Sith helped the creature up. Its species was completely unfamiliar to him: as wide as it was short, the thing sported murky, thick green skin across its wide, oval head. Its ears and eyes were comically oversized, as though they had been stretched out somehow, and its loose brown hair hung over both now as it struggled to get comfortable. He looked like some sort of old children's story character: a goblin or troll.

What...

What time was it?

Glancing at his chrono, Perniteus' heart sank. Midday. The Union meeting was already in session. Right in front of him, beyond the guarded and security-monitored doors. The Jedi had probably walked right past him as he slept, and he had never even known.

A red hot, itching, aching emotion built in every part of his body. It was not exactly hate, and not exactly despair. But it was familiar to him.

Union Hall was surrounded by a small, tidy selection of gardens. The displa was famous, although it was hard to see why, since it appeared rather modest at the moment. It was on the outskirts of these, in the shadows of solitary trees and faux-classical archways, that Perniteus' bench sat. In front of him was a small arrangement of flowers and creeping plants: the sort of display that would not attract attention.

"Thank you, thank you," the goblin thing muttered, then laughed strangely. Its voice was guttural and halting, nasal and whistly. "Sorry to wake you am I!" it added, with oddly-placed emphasis, and then laughed.

Perniteus looked at it down his long nose and concentrated his disdain for the creature. It was helpful to him. It allowed him to focus. As he looked and tried to order his thoughts, he watched the goblin rooting through a cheap little bag, through various personal effects, looking for something. When it found it, whatever it was, it relaxed and closed the bag.

"Good, good. Good," it muttered. "Greetings to you!"

For simplicity's sake, he answered. "Good afternoon."

"Hmmmm! Excuse me," the creature said, and jumped off the bench, leaving the bag. He walked like a small child, though he looked more like an old man and acted like somebody in middle age. It was funny.

"A stranger to this world are you, hm? How long have you lived in Coronet?" the small one asked, waddling about and looking at the flowers.

There would be at least two hours before the Union session was finished, Perniteus reasoned. For the time being, he had nothing to do.

"I'm from the other side of the planet, actually," Perniteus replied, without thinking. "But I have been there a few years." As he heard the words, they seemed like a lie. It felt like much longer since he had first embraced seclusion and the dark side.

"And why Corellia? Why leave Naboo?"

The creature recognised his species. Most people did not, since Gungans seldom travelled to the surface of their world, let alone beyond it.

"Ah," he mulled the question over. The answer was complicated. "My father and I argued, when I... fell and broke his bongo," he said, honestly. "It's a longo tale-o."

The creature nodded. "Like it here, do you?"

It seemed rather pointless to lie to this thing. "Not particularly," he said. "Do you?"

The goblin thought about it. "Travelled here before, have I. My species – many, many years do we live. Many worlds have I seen. There are more pretty ones outside the core, yes?"

Naboo was pretty. "Yes," the Sith agreed. "And it can be difficult, being surrounded by other species."

"Yes, yes, yes," the little one said. "Familiar with that, am I. Few of your people are there so close to Coruscant. Get funny looks, eh?" That laughter again.

"I am..." Perniteus was hungry, he thought. He should leave the garden for a short while and prepare. But it was hard to simply ignore this odd sentient's questions. "I am laughed at," he said. "I have a history of accidents. Falling over, making a fool..." he scowled. "Looking ridiculous."

"Ridiculous, do you look?" the small man said, facing him and smiling incredulously. Perniteus only narrowed his eyes. "Two meters tall are you!" the creature continued. "Average build! Speak good Basic do you, yes?"

The Gungan chuckled. "Muy muy," he replied.

"More ridiculous beings than you are there," the goblin said, and pretended to be offended. "Where is he now, your father?"

"He, ah... heesa dead now. The city sent me the news after the funeral last year."

The little man made a strange facial expression: an awkward attempt to convey concern, Perniteus thought. He turned back to the garden again in a moment.

"He was old," the Sith Lord told the goblin. "He was weak. His time had come."

"Yes," the small one said. The silliness was gone from his voice now. He made it deep and level. "Yes."

"As it will come for me. As it always does. It is the way of things."

There was a moment of silence, then. Perniteus was running out of things to say. He never had anything to say about his father. He had hated him, and fed freely from that hate, and yet he seemed to lose his energy whenever he thought about it.

"Do not fear the end so much," the creature said, bending over, and he carefully held a red rose at the edge of a small bush.

Perniteus stared. "I fear nothing," he said simply.

"Always fear it is," the thing said. "Always there is fear at the heart. But do not fear death." His stubby, hard figures snapped the rose's stem very suddenly and he looked up at Perniteus, smiling as though the two shared some inside joke. "But five-hundred years old am I! Easy for _me_ to say, hm?" he chuckled.

Without saying anything, Perniteus agreed.

The little goblin idly twisted the stem in his fingers, rubbing sap into his already green skin and thinking about something. He was still hunched over with his arm straightened. Gently he lowered himself, keeping the flower in place, and sat on crossed legs.

"Everything grows and dies," the small one said solemnly, perhaps to himself, "except for the force that makes it. Back and forth _it_ goes. All around. But there is that force, and then there is also what it makes, hm? Short-sighted it is to hate that which fails. More precious it is." The creature's voice lowered. "Hm. We _all_ will fail..."

The small man grunted very slightly and replaced the rose in the bush. "But living are we now," he whispered.

Very carefully he let go, staring intently, but when he moved his hand away, the rose stood up tall. It even swayed slightly in the breeze. The stem was mended.

"Magic trick," he said, chuckling a little. "Sleight of hand. Easy it becomes, after a century of practice!"

The small creature turned away from the bush, satisfied for the moment, and moved back to the bench. Perniteus lifted him back to his seat, then stood up himself.

He was thinking about his father, and it was coming easily to him.

As coincidence would have it, Perniteus' master had become a Sith because his master in turn found him angry at his father. He had goaded him into his murder, and the dark side had quickly seduced him. The story of Perniteus' own ascension was similar, if less exciting. He was angry at his father. The Sith had found him. And then he had come to Corellia, to let go of his old life. And he rather missed it sometimes. On days like this.

How many Sith masters, he wondered, had fallen for the same trick? In all this time since the first Sith arrived on Korriban, how many younglings had fled from their fathers and mothers and never gotten to see them grow old?

What exactly were they supposed to _avenge_, anyway? Perniteus barely remembered. He didn't care, to be completely honest.

Why did the dark side care? he wondered. Why did they need each other?

For the moment at least, it seemed to Perniteus that all a Sith Lord ever saw was enough anger and to keep his master alive and carry out its whims. The only revenge would be-

There was birdsong, which distracted the Sith long enough for him to glance back at the silly goblin, who was unpacking some sort of unappetising-looking food in a jar.

Without saying anything, Perniteus strode away. Back to his ship, and then to somewhere new.

Without a thought in his head, he yawned and put his hands in his pockets. It was a warm day today. Perhaps he would take off the robe. The elusive Master Yoda, whenever his session in the Union was finished, would just have to die in his own time.

Perniteus probably would have screwed it up anyway.


	7. Epilogue

**EPILOGUE**

* * *

Binks strode into the hangar bay he had used that morning with a full belly and a gentle breeze on his shoulders. As he activated the _Decimator's_ boarding ramp he had no particular plan for the rest of the day, but he wasn't terribly worried about it either. He had no idea how long this mood would hold, but he knew he wasn't going back to his apartment.

The ramp fell slowly, with the usual Sith gravitas and menace. Today it just seemed slow. He watched it and thought about the old ship. Perhaps he could trade it in? he mused. Maybe just scrap it. Despite it being an antique, it was not attractive and its value had been intentionally hidden. You could get good money for scrap these days, if you knew the right shipyards.

Something hit Binks' back and neck, flattening him in a second. He was used to falling on his face, but what had he tripped on this time? Pressing on his palms, he tried to get up but found another powerful kick - stronger than any normal being's legs - smacking him back onto the durasteel, pressing him down.

"Wha-?"

"The time has come," said a deep, muted voice which he recognised immediately. "Your reign is over and mine has begun!" Darth Flagetus. Perniteus' apprentice of only three months had followed him here.

"I returned to the moon of Corbos, the one you had dismissed the other day," he said. "The dark side aura we felt had enveloped a ruined temple. I found holocrons crafted by great masters of ancient times. Ajuunta Pall, Naga Sadow... and even Lord Bane. Apparently he finished his final record after all!"

"Was it any good?"

"Well... no. It fell apart and caught fire when I switched it on. But I absorbed its power, and it was mighty!"

"Bu-"

Perniteus couldn't finish the thought. He struggled to move, but couldn't lift himself an inch. The sound of the descending boarding ramp gew louder, closer to his head.

"I saw..." he groaned, "a vision from the dark side!"

"As did I, Binka-Bee," Flagetus replied. "But mine came true."

As the dark guides the hidden Lords of the Sith, so too does it cloak them. As they control it, so do they carry out its will. All life is finite but the darkness - the stillness - survives. It preserves itself, passing from the shadows of one being to another, beneath their feet and eyelids, behind their teeth, until it is ready to swallow the world whole.

Until the lights fail.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Thank you very much for reading! I wanted to say that although this story is very much a parody of James Luceno's novel _Darth Plagueis_, Drew Karpysyhn's _Darth Bane_ trilogy and Matthew Stover's brilliant novelization of _Revenge of the Sith_, I hope my love for those books shows through as much as their... slightly siller aspects.

I found myself reading _Plagueis_, and wondering just how many novels I had now read in which the protagonist was a psychopathic Sith Lord and half the pages were taken up with mixed metaphors about the nature of the dark side. And how I was getting too old for this. But really, I wouldn't bother to make fun if I hadn't loved them in the first place.

Thanks again, especially if you left a review - I really appreciate that. And remember:

_Even stars die._


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